


Reunion

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Series: Where Is He? [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Phil Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 16:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10222796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: Phil needs to see Clint. The last time he saw him was when his eyes were blue, and Phil can't handle being away any longer. First he has to get through the team, though, and they're not keen on letting him in. They're protective like that.





	

“Where is He?” Phil says. He can’t help crossing his arms tightly across his chest and staring at the floor as he asks. His jacket feels like it’s strangling him, and not because of the sling his arm is resting in. He wants this, needs it, but fear is pulsing in his blood and his heart is jackrabbiting all over the place. He wants to face Tony and Steve and Bruce, but nothing from his old life seems to be working at this moment, including his confidence,  so he keeps his head ducked instead.

“You come in here, tell us you’ve been alive for a month, and all you want to talk about is where Barton is right now?” Tony says, and Phil steals a glance, enough to see that Tony has set his drink down and is getting to his feet. His fury is written all over his face – it reminds Phil of the day Obediah almost tore Tony apart with his betrayal.

“Yes,” is all Phil can say, and he can’t move. His feet feel like they’ve been nailed to the floor. His ill-fitting suit feels like it’s got weights on the sleeves and pants legs, and his hands won’t stop clenching into fists, no matter how he tries to pull some sort of calm into his appearance.

“No,” Captain Rogers says, somehow having stood up from the couch when Phil wasn't looking, and Phil can’t stop his head from snapping up to stare into Rogers’ furious eyes. “We’re not helping you get to him right now.” His blue eyes are dark, and Phil figures  the scowl on his face is probably how he reacted to being told he was nothing more than a showman for the USO.

“Go home, Agent,” Tony snarls, and this time Phil can’t help the involuntary step back, his body trying to get him away from their wrath.

His heart won’t listen.

“Wait,” he says. “I just woke up three days ago. I’m not supposed to be here, and - ” He stops the strangled ‘please’ before it escapes his lips.  

That stops them for a moment. Tony reaches back down for his drink and Rogers blinks in surprise.

“Coulson?”

It’s Natasha, entering from the back of the room, gun drawn as expected. She’s dressed in grey sleep pants,  a forest green t-shirt, no shoes, and her face betrays nothing..

Phil watches as she slowly moves toward him, running her eyes up and down his frame, looking for something to give away that it wasn’t really him. “I’m sorry,” was all he can force out, and his voice breaks anyway.

Her gun wavers for half a second before she steadies herself and looks at Tony and Steve.

Tony nods toward Phil. “According to Jarvis, it’s him, unless they’ve figured out a way to duplicate DNA exactly.”

“I was dead for forty-five seconds,” he says, as quickly as he can despite the cotton that seems to fill  his mouth. “They revived me long enough to get to surgery, where they got some help from one of Xavier's people – this whole recovery isn’t exactly standard medical procedure. I only woke long enough to be lucid three days ago, and they told me you all were alive and working together, but that no one has seen Clint since the invasion and no one would tell me anything about why and they said I couldn’t come here so I broke out anyway and I don’t want to go back until someone tells me where he Is.” He sucks in a heavy breath and steps forward. “Natasha, please.”

His vision tunnels to her, and his brain shuts out the sounds of the Tower and the others, waiting only on Natasha. She knows. She knows what Clint was to him; she knows that he wouldn’t stay away on purpose; she knows that Clint is the center of everything to him; she knows that Clint is his greatest weakness and his greatest victory.

She puts her gun down carefully on a nearby table and moves close. She runs her hand down his cheek and he thinks maybe he’s never felt compassion in his life until this moment. Her hand is smooth, gentle on his face, and his breath is shaking as he gasps at the contact.  Her eyes catch his and it’s as if they’re looking into his soul to verify his story. After a moment she presses her forehead to his and whispers, “He’s here. He needs you.”

Phil’s knees almost buckle, but she holds him up, throwing his good arm over her shoulder.

“That’s it?” Tony asks, and he steps in front of them, his dark eyes filled with rage. “Clint’s had his heart ripped out by Loki, been blacklisted by SHIELD, can’t even say Coulson’s name without getting a full-on panic attack, and we’re just going to let him walk in there and try  and make everything better?”

Natasha fixes Tony with a steely gaze and replies, “Yes.”

“Natasha,” Steve says, and Phil can’t help but wonder at these two men who have clearly worked their way into Natasha’s trust.

“I have no illusions that this is going to make everything better, Steve,” she replies. “But I do know it won’t make it any worse, and it will give Clint something he thought had been ripped away from him. Trust me.”

All this talk about Clint leaves Phil’s skin prickling with foreboding, and he can’t wait any longer. “Natasha, please,” he says, and she nods and leads them toward a hallway beyond the common room-type area they’re currently in. There’s an elevator in the hall, and she pulls them inside and presses a floor button.

As soon as the doors close, he leans into her a little and relishes the familiar scent of her citrus shampoo and the feel of her shoulder against his arm. He’s very tired.

He’s startled out of his reverie when she says, “JARVIS, stop the elevator, and she fixes him with a hard stare.

“I have one question and one thing to say before we go see him,” she says, and her voice is back to sounding sharp, like one of her knives.

Phil can only nod.

“Okay,” she says. “Are you healthy enough to be here? I don’t want to take you to him and have to call a doctor for you. Clint won’t handle that well.”

He sighs. “I’ll stay on my feet a little longer, I think.” 

She raises an eyebrow.

“I’m exhausted, yes, but I’m not in dangerous shape. I’ll get through this,” he says, and then adds, “I have to.”

She sighs, then says, gently, “Okay. Then I need to tell you, Phil, he’s in rough shape. It’s been an impossible month. He insists on training with us, and we had one mission as a team that he participated in – not sure if SHIELD knows he was there. So he’s working, but – “ she cuts herself off.

“Natasha?” He asks, but he sees her pull herself together and make a choice.

“JARVIS, Clint’s floor, please.”

He takes a deep breath and blinks as the elevator draws to a stop, and it’s as if he can feel his blood coursing through his veins, as if he can hear every usually undetectable metallic creak that the pristine Tower makes under their feet, as if he can taste things changing with each step towards Clint’s door.

“Wait,” Natasha says, and she gestures to the floor outside the door. It’s just a small foyer-type space they’re standing in, painted in a soft lavender with deep purple trim, just big enough for Phil to wait comfortably. “Sit down, okay? I need to explain things to him first.”

But Phil is tired, and he’s tired of waiting, and he needs to see Clint’s kaleidoscope eyes instead of the sharp blue of Loki’s control. “No,” he says, and he adds, “JARVIS, please let Clint know that Natasha is here to see him,” and he knows she’ll fight him on this move later, when he’s well enough to fight, but he’s willing to pay that bill when it comes due.

JARVIS apparently knows enough about the situation, though, to be on Natasha’s side. “Ma’am?” He asks, and if he could sound hesitant, he does.

Natasha stares at Phil for a moment and nods. “Tell Clint I need to speak with him.”

There’s a pause, and then the door opens to Clint’s apartment, but he’s nowhere in sight. Phil steps through the door and is treated with a tasteful if sparse living room area, with a plush couch that reminds Phil of the one in his office, a big screen television flush against the wall, and a recliner in the corner. Other than the couch and the foyer area, nothing about the place screams Clint, but Phil finds himself relaxing the second he crosses into the apartment. Clint is here. He is here. They may both be a little lost right this second, but they’re in the same space again, and that makes Phil’s life better than it was ten seconds ago.

Natasha ushers him to the couch, but he refuses to sit down. She rolls her eyes, but he knows if he hits that couch it’s going to be tough to get back up, no matter what, so he stands.

“Wait here,” she says, and then disappears down the hallway that branches from the living room.

Phil counts. One, two, three, he counts the seconds, because he’s in Clint’s space and Clint is here and if he doesn’t count he’ll lose himself in the memory of Clint’s piercing, unnatural blue eyes and Nick’s statement, “If we can’t stop him, we’ll have to take him down, Phil,” and Phil doesn’t want to think about that conversation ever again. So he counts.

Two hundred seconds later, Clint steps cautiously into the room and Phil sees him for the first time since they kissed goodbye the morning of Loki’s arrival.

Phil ran through at least three scenarios of this moment on his way from where he was being kept by SHIELD and Stark Tower, but Clint’s eyes going wide, Clint ducking his head, and Clint pulling Phil into his arms with a strangled, “Oh, god. Phil,” was not actually one of them, so his breath leaves his lungs as he’s pulled in close.

He can feel the bones of Clint’s ribs as he wraps his arm around him; he can feel Clint trembling against his chest; he can tell Clint hasn’t showered yet today despite the late hour. He can feel Clint’s hair that had gotten longer than usual, and he runs his fingers through it again, relishing the feel of it against his skin.

“Clint,” he says, and that makes Clint shudder against him, so he pulls back. He’s desperate to look Clint in the eye, and when he does meet Clint’s gaze again, both of them have tears running down their cheeks. They reach out at the same time to brush them off of the other, and the symmetry, along with the look of wonder and joy in Clint’s eyes, is overwhelming. Phil pulls them closer and presses a kiss to Clint’s lips, letting everything he’s feeling carry him through, feeling the reality of the moment in a way that the last few days before he was stabbed never held.

“I didn’t mean to stay away,” he chokes out once they part, “I didn’t mean to hurt you more.”

He feels Natasha press both of them toward the couch with a gentle, “Both of you need to sit down,” and she slips out the front door once Phil is situated against Clint’s chest.

Phil turns to keep Clint in his sight, and smiles at the sight of him, wonders if he’ll ever lose the wonder at Clint in his space again, safe.

“Are you . . . Healthy?” Clint asks, running a hand down Phil’s cheek. His frown reminds Phil of missions gone wrong as they checked each other over in the safe houses afterwards. “Are you staying?”

Phil nods and lays his hand over Clint’s. “Yes and yes. I’m not one hundred percent, and I’m exhausted, and I’ll need to check back in with the doctors, but I’m healing, and I’m safe, and I'm not going anywhere without you for a very long time if you’ll still have me.” He never wants to leave. They need each other. Clint is too thin, too shaky, too emotionally raw, Phil can already tell.

And Phil? He got stabbed through the chest by an alien god while thinking his partner was lost to him, and now he’s weak and afraid of what the Invasion meant for his world. “Can I stay?”  
he asks when Clint doesn’t answer.

Clint’s skin is too pale, but his eyes are bright now, brighter than when Phil came in, and he nods and smiles in that kind, gentle way he’s always had. “I can’t sleep through the night, I get angry for absolutely no reason at all, food tastes awful to me right now, and I’m pretty much a point and shoot team member at the moment, but you can stay.” His voice is wobbly as he adds, “You can always stay.”

So Phil stays, and Tony and Steve settle down, Bruce cooks good food, and Natasha looks out for him. Clint keeps screaming through the night, but they establish a routine for getting him calmed down; Phil encourages naps during the day that seem to help. Clint helps Phil with physical therapy, and they always come back together at the end of the day, marveling at their second chance.

 

 

 


End file.
